Innovative Solar Systems, LLC (ISS) continues to rapidly expand while hiring additional engineering staff and Executive Management personnel on a weekly basis now as the company's yearly pipeline of projects has grown from approximately 500MW per year to approximately 10GW's per year. John Green, President and CEO of ISS states that the company will have approximately 300 projects ranging in size from 20MW to over 200MW in the company's pipeline that will be fully developed and moving to construction in 2017.
ISS already has bragging rights in that they were the first company to develop and get constructed some of the largest projects this side of the Rockies which include an 80MW (AC) Solar Farm project in Hope Mills, NC. The company also has many other 35MW-80MW projects in the East currently in various stages of construction.
Investors have become very comfortable with these types of Utility Scale Solar Farm projects as long term investments due to low risk and high returns. There are few investments available in the financial community that can yield these types of returns and that can require billions of dollars of investment capital for bundled portfolios. A single 20MW solar farm project may require $40MM in total capital while a 200MW project could require anywhere from $300MM to $400MM. As stated, ISS has approximately 300 large scale projects in the company's pipeline for the next 12 months which could require upwards of $15-20 Billion dollars in equity and debt money. The beauty of these solar farm projects is that they provide solid returns for upwards of forty years due to the reliability of PV Solar Panels.
ISS is probably one of the few developers of large scale solar farm projects in the U.S. that always has "Shovel Ready" projects for sale. The company currently has both an 80MW(AC) and a 50MW(AC) project of which both have interconnection agreements, purchase power agreements, zoning approvals and are ready for immediate construction. IRR's on ISS's projects range anywhere from 10-20% for the Equity Sponsor Investor to well over 75% for the Tax Equity Investor. By having a constant revolving pipeline of Utility Scale Solar projects the company can serve the needs of both existing clients and future clients while now internally financing and owning more of ISS's projects in the future.